“I like to cook, but you can’t cookwith guests underfoot,” Chase says. “Itold Patricia I don’t want a kitchen thatlooks like a complete redo. I don’t wantit to look like William Sonoma or amuseum, but like my family has ownedthis house since 1894, and it has sim-ply evolved over the period of time. Iwant some contemporary elements andsome traditional elements, and I wantthere to be doubt about what’s origi-nal and what’s new. And she damn welldelivered.”But it was teamwork. Healy’s impulsewas to cover the original subway tile,because it was “grubby,” and every-body’s doing it. “But mine’s from 1894,”Chase countered, and suggested it becleaned. Chase also wanted to keep thewainscoting, relocate the butler’s pan-try cabinetry to the new pantry, andpreserve the Jewett icebox made fromextinct American chestnut, while Healyconvinced him he didn’t need two sinksor two dishwashers, but did need “fan-cier appliances than I was inclined toget” and a “breathtakingly expensivefaucet.” Simple maple cabinetry con-tributed to the clean look; it’s comple-mented by a new piece of freestandingcabinetry. “People say, ‘It’s nice youwere able to keep that,’” winks Chase.“Mission accomplished.”As was the mission of managing lin-gering kitchen guests. For summer,it was a simple solution of switchingout the back wall window for a door,so guests can move freely between thekitchen and the covered deck. In coldermonths, guests fill the kitchen space asHealy intended: with Chase on one sideof the central, quartz-covered island,cooking, and guests on the other, stand-ing or seated in replicas of 1958 Nor-man Cherner stools. “It’s a place forguests to talk to you while you’re cook-ing,” says Chase, differentiating thecounter seating from the dining table.

The table is a removable round glass
piece slotted into the end of the island
and supported by a pedestal. “
Patricia said, ‘you find the pedestal, find
something unique, interesting. You’ll
know when you find it,’ and I did, in an
antique shop in West Hollywood,” says
Chase. “It’s an Italian Burwood veneer
pedestal. It can seat four comfortably,
and, if we have more than that, we have
the living room or dining room, which
is still three doors away.”

The original windows had Venetianblinds, and then curtains, but Chasefound they got grimy fast in a work-ing kitchen. Also, the proximity of thehouse next door meant they were most-ly closed, which made the kitchen dark.“We discovered window film. Everyonethinks it’s etched, but its vinyl windowfilm,” Chase marvels. “It mirrors thefloor design nicely, and we have thebenefits of beautiful, original windows,privacy, light, and cleanliness, which,in kitchens, is always an issue. WhenI had a disgusting kitchen, I didn’t haveto clean as much, because what was thepoint? Now, I have a robot to clean thefloor; I go to bed at night and turn iton. That’s a silly extravagance, but it’skind of cool.”The renovation took more than ayear, delayed by a few of the custom-ary unpleasant surprises that comewith restoring old homes, e.g,. open-ing the ceiling and finding corrodedand leaking brass plumbing that neces-sitated redoing an upstairs bathroom, ajob that included searching out customtile. “We found a place down south thatcould do it,” says Chase. “I told themI’m from Buffalo, they said, ‘We had aclient in Buffalo before.’ ‘Who?’ ‘TheDarwin Martin House.’”The result is a kitchen so in keep-ing with Wicks & Green design of thehouse that Chase’s goal of blurringtime was met. The ice box, the subwaytile, the wainscoting, the pantry cabi-netry, the windows, the grates, doors,radiators, and one lighting fixture are